 | | The Hendrick No. 24 will once again be a staple at Busch Series events thanks to Casey Mears. Credit: Turner Sports New Media |
By Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM
January 22, 2007
05:02 PM EST (22:02 GMT)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Casey Mears, who won his first career Busch Series race in one of the nine starts he made last season for Chip Ganassi Racing, will nearly triple his number of Busch starts in 2007 for Hendrick Motorsports. The team has announced Mears, who is currently testing his No. 24 Chevrolet as part of the final session of Jackson Hewitt Preseason Thunder at Daytona International Speedway, will do 22 races in the car, with sponsorship from his Nextel Cup program's co-primary sponsor, the Army National Guard. The races, which will begin with the Feb. 17 Orbitz 300 at Daytona, are all "companion" events with the Cup Series, and will mark the organization's first use of the No. 24 in the Busch Series since 2002, the team said. In 72 career Busch Series starts, Mears, 28, has a win at Chicagoland Speedway, four Bud Poles, eight top-five and 17 top-10 finishes. This season, his first with crew chief Chad Walter, marks the seventh consecutive year he'll start a Busch race. "The competition level in the Busch Series is very high, and I'm excited about the opportunity to run more races at more tracks," Mears said. "I'm also looking forward to bringing the No. 24 Chevrolet back to the track for Hendrick Motorsports. "The National Guard has built a great program around the car, and it's an honor for me to represent the men and women currently serving as Guard members." A packed garage Twenty-two teams joined at least 16 that remained from the opening two days of Busch testing at Daytona, making Sunday the busiest day of the season. The test also featured the most ride swapping seen yet, as according to NASCAR's timing & scoring paperwork, Kevin Hamlin and Juan Montoya split time in Ganassi Racing's No. 42 Dodge, Ron Hornaday and Cale Gale did the same in Kevin Harvick Inc.'s No. 33 Chevrolet and Bobby Labonte and Kertus Davis did the same in KHI's No. 77 Chevy. Team owner Rusty Wallace did the twist one better by going out on the track at the end of Saturday for a short drafting run with his son, the No. 66 Rusty Wallace Inc. team's regular driver, Steve Wallace. And Marcos Ambrose tested two JTG Racing Fords Sunday -- his own No. 59 Fusion that was finishing its three-day test and full-season teammate Jon Wood's No. 47 Ford. Wood was suffering from flu-like symptoms and stayed away from the track. "Test mules" were also in use, as Bill Elliott tested Evernham Motorsports' No. 9 Dodge for its Speedweeks driver, Kasey Kahne. Chad Blount was in Fitz Racing's No. 22 Dodge, the car that will be driven for most of the season by Ganassi Racing Nextel Cup driver David Stremme. O'Quinn in the house Danny O'Quinn Jr., who won the 2006 Busch Series Raybestos Rookie of the Year Award for Roush Racing, currently has a minimal racing schedule for 2007, but was smiling in the Daytona garage as he worked with his teammates and mulled his options. O'Quinn said he is still under contract to Roush, who is "vigorously pursuing sponsorship" to enable O'Quinn to do more than the "couple of races" he's scheduled to do for Roush now. The Virginia driver also said he is free to pursue other opportunities with teams using any of the other three manufacturers' cars -- so while O'Quinn said he'd love to race a Busch Series Ford -- he could appear in a Chevrolet, Dodge or Toyota if a ride's available. Guaranteeing a win "Confidence" is Ganassi Racing Busch crew chief Brad Parrott's middle name, and it was apparent when he told the media at Daytona that his driver for two-thirds of the 2007 Busch Series, Juan Montoya, would win a race this season. Parrott said the team planned to take the next step in that journey on Tuesday, when he said they would brave temperatures in the 30s, if necessary, to do a Busch Series road course test at Virginia International Raceway to prepare for the series' outing in Mexico City early in the season. Old shoe syndrome That's what Bobby Hamilton Jr. was feeling the first time he walked into his new employer's shop at Team Rensi, for the first time in about three years. "I walked in the shop, and the cool thing about it is that it's all people who I've not worked with -- but ran against in the past," Hamilton said on Sunday. "It's a group of guys that either I used to work with them or ran against them. "And, it was so easy [to get comfortable]. I walked in and used nicknames from school or nicknames from back in the past that we used, and that's kind of the relationship that we already have." Hamilton, who's always a straight shooter, continued in that mode Sunday. "Whether it's going to be a home run from the green flag here at Daytona, it's just like anything else -- it's a building process," he said. "We will build it. I think after having the drought of success that I've had in the last two years, nothing burns more than wanting to run good and taking trophies home." | 
